Skinamarink 🌑

Nothing I share, say, do, believe, quote, repost, or comment is an endorsement. I am physically unable to endorse.

[Skinamarink 🌑 @Burhunk]

In the US discourse, the political window is as follows: the "liberals" are considered the left and the "conservatives" are considered the right. This is an extremely narrow spectrum compared to most places in the world, and a distortion of political theory. The ruling class has a vested interest in defining the "acceptable" political spectrum this narrowly since neither liberals nor conservatives challenge capital.

In actuality, the left is comprised of a large number of political philosophies (examples: marixsts, maoists, trotskyists, leninists, a number of different anarchist traditions, and different combinations of the above). All real leftist traditions challenge capital, and many of them challenge hierarchy.

"Liberals" are not considered leftists by most standards worldwide because they challenge neither. In fact, they protect the status quo, and use various strategies (e.g. identity politics, pinkwashing, greenwashing, etc.) to prevent real progressive change.

On a fundamental level what we're talking about here is who advocates for worker empowerment. Leftists believe that workers are owed ownership of their labor, and this premise fundamentally contradicts basic capitalist theory. In other words, you simply can't believe in capitalism and be a leftist.

You asked for specific examples, but there simply are no leftists in mainstream politics in the US. There is nobody in senate or congress who has said anything really resembling "capitalism is bad". You would need to go outside the Democrat-Republican window to hear anyone say anything remotely similar (see: The Green Party, The Labor Party, and some independent politicians like Ralph Nader). Bernie Sanders is kind of considered a centrist in the sense that he does discuss the problems with capitalism, but never take the extra step to actually formally denounce capitalism per se and advocate for a different economic system. This is the case with "Social Democrats" in general, who ultimately believe in a "welfare capitalism" sort of similar to what you find in Scandinavia.

The easiest way to describe the current political state in the US is by looking at the "ratchet effect": the conservatives continue to push the US political window to the right, and the liberals maintain the status quo and prevent moving the window to the left. The end result is the US becoming a fascist state that protects capital at the expense of its workers and maximizes exploitation of people and the environment for the sake of capital accumulation in the hands of the few.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

John Bolton, according to CNN, will plead guilty to a felony of mishandling classified information, with a fine of $2 million and possible prison time.

Bolton previously urged that Edward Snowden be executed, and Julian Assange be imprisoned for life, for informing the public.

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

We regret suggesting that international law is a matter of opinion

[Nick Cleveland-Stout @nick_clevelands]

The Israeli Defense Ministry is training 320 "influence experts" per year on using deepfakes, psycohological warfare, propaganda, and deception. Some of the courses specifically focus on how to conduct influence operations in the US.

[Rania Khalek @RaniaKhalek]

The Breakthrough News Instagram account was deactivated this afternoon with zero explanation.

We have over half a million followers.

Was this a mistake or censorship of an independent progressive media outlet?

Please tell @Meta @instagram to reinstate our account ASAP

@BTnewsroom

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

Turns out FDD (who Trump just copied Iran talking points from) blueprinted this GOP push to fuse Israeli & US militaries.
FDD (US nonprofit) was founded "to enhance Israel’s image." Staffed by ex-Israeli officials—including a Netanyahu advisor who helped get $3.8B/year to Israel.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Graham Platner's primary accuser, Lyndsey Fifield, is a pathological liar (see below) whose main cause is Israel.

Make of that what what you will. I know one's views of the #BelieveWomen framework radically shifts based on the politics of the accused, but it's clearly relevant:

[Mel @Villgecrazylady]

She made all her social media accounts private but here she is blatantly lying about why Rumeysa Ozturk was targeted by Rubio’s state department.

This is all I need to see to know she’s a lying hack with a very clear political motive.

[Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده @RamAbdu]

Breaking: After Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s legal team appealed his arbitrary detention, Israeli authorities transferred him on 3 June 2026 from Naqab Prison to solitary confinement in Nafha as a punitive measure. The move comes amid harsh conditions and denial of medical treatment.

[Laila Al-Arian @LailaAlarian]

Israel is continuing to torture Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and the world is shamefully silent about it

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Most "antisemitism" in the 2020s is just Israel doing crazy evil shit, people pushing back on it, and Zionists framing the pushback as another Holocaust. Today we're doing "You're a Nazi if you think it's bad for your nation's citizens to commit war crimes in a foreign military."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

There you go: the FT confirms that not only is the NSA using Anthropic's AI "for offensive cyber operations" against "nations such as China or Iran" but Anthropic is actively helping them in that effort.

As per the article, Anthropic "installed about half a dozen staff within the NSA as so-called forward-deployed engineers to guide the use of the technology and customise models for specific applications."

It confirms two things. First: the United States is the most aggressive state actor in cyberspace, by far. It offensively infiltrates other nations' networks, and is now supercharging that capability with AI. Heck that is literally one of the core mission statements of the NSA, one of the largest security agencies of the US government.

Second, that Anthropic's carefully cultivated image as the ethical, safety-first AI company that "partners with the church" is a fiction. In reality, it is the most deeply embedded AI company in the US security state. Instead of building guardrails, they're literally weaponizing their own AI inside the NSA.

Src: https://t.co/sWmXvPSUy4

[Medea Benjamin @medeabenjamin]

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna accused CODEPINK of being tied to the Chinese Communist Party and said foreign influence laws should be strengthened.

We said: absolutely. That means taking a serious look at AIPAC and other organizations that spend enormous amounts of money shaping U.S. foreign policy and pushing Congress toward endless wars.

Thank you Anna Paulina Luna

[Rania Khalek @RaniaKhalek]

This is a list of 117 Democrats who support Israel’s murder of over 3400 Lebanese, including dozens of journalists, over 200 children, over 100 medics and the destruction of over 50 villages, over 50,000 homes and the forced displacement of over 1 million people.

All this alongside loud Israeli official statements admitting their goal is ethnic cleansing, occupation and land theft in Lebanon.

Primary these Democrats!

Even if this isn’t your number one issue, it’s a sign that they love war and do not care about the desires of their base. It means they will behave the same on the issues that matter most to you.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

People like me take great pains to avoid coming across as antisemitic in our criticisms of Israel, and then Jewish Zionists go to these events all “Yes we Jews need to be actively manipulating western institutions in order to deceive everyone and control society.”

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

The 1948 Nakba is very well known, but the ethnic cleansing of 1967 is discussed far lesn, ad it was utterly horrific. Historian Adam Raz has p,ublishsed a well-resourced account in Haaretz today, built on Israeli documents. Here are the main findings:

1) Israel expelled and drove out roughly 300,000 Arabs in 1967, about 200,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and about 120,000 Syrians from the Golan, where only some 6,000 of an estimated 130,000 remained. One soldier described the Gaza raids: "We grabbed guys, stood them up and eliminated them. In hindsight it looks like murder."

2) This was not an accident; it was intentional policy, prepared for since the early 1960s. Defense Minister Dayan wanted the West Bank emptied and repeatedly welcomed reports of flight. Many villages were destroyed. The KKL later planted Canada Park over the ruins of Imwas, Beit Nuba and Yalu. One soldier said the columns of expelled families reminded him of Jews "trudging through occupied Europe," and his heart sank at the sight.

3) Those trying to return were slaughtered. Troops were ordered to shoot to kill without warning. When one soldier asked whether to fire even if he heard babies crying, the answer was: "Don't be a girl." The IDF itself reported nearly 150 Palestinians killed this way by early September, and Chief of Staff Rabin confirmed these were the standing orders.

4) Crimes were widespread: systematic looting, the execution of unarmed prisoners and civilians, and the bulldozing of Golan villages "so there'd be nowhere to return to." One of the officers who ordered prisoners executed was Moshe Levi — later IDF Chief of Staff. A soldier wrote to his girlfriend that they had turned Sinai into a "valley of slaughter," adding: "I saw too many murders to cry."

5) The legal warnings were ignored. In December 1967, Foreign Ministry legal adviser Theodor Meron wrote that the expulsions were "a grave breach of the Geneva Convention." His summary line captures the whole episode: the Ministerial Committee for Security Affairs "decided to approve the policy anyway."

This sounds incredibly familiar, doesn't it? This is the Israeli way of war, based one slaughter and ethnic cleansing. Nothing changed.

[Dr. Annelle Rodriguez Sheline @AnnelleSheline]

"Under the aid model, @BenFreemanDC said, a voter who objects to Israeli military actions can call a member of Congress & demand a vote against aid

But under the procurement model, 'You have no one to call'

[It would intentionally obscure] how much US money is going to Israel”

[Quincy Institute @QuincyInst]

Why, exactly, are politicians in Washington trying to merge Israel and America's military-industrial sectors?

Under the current model of direct US military aid to Israel, @BenFreemanDC tells @majorityfm @SamSeder, "there's congressional oversight of it, and every year there's a vote on this aid package. Members of Congress upset with Israel can potentially hold it up and can potentially attempt to block all of it....and critically, the public can get involved. They can yell at their member of Congress to block the aid package, to hold it up because they're upset. And they can do it before the aid goes out."

The new model, which was publicly endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu this week, would effectively merge the Israeli military-industrial sector with the US military sector across several domains: AI, cyber, energy, weapons, drones, missile defense, and on and on.

"What that means for transparency," Ben warns, "is, all that stuff about calling your member of Congress — that won't work anymore. Congress is not going to have a say in this. This is going to be within the Department of Defense; the Pentagon bureaucracy is going to handle all of this."

Why is this happening? Because pro-Israel politicians in the US and Israel "know that aid is going to be under more pressure than it ever has been before. So they're doing what a lot of folks do in Washington: if you can't win the public fight, take it privately. Use your lobbyists, use your special interests to try to sneak this through" https://t.co/M175FNvxm3

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

Israeli authorities have transferred detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya to solitary confinement at Nafha Prison after his legal team challenged the extension of his detention, according to his lawyer.

The lawyer says the June 3 transfer was punitive and has left Abu Safiya without necessary medical treatment.

Healthcare Workers Watch says at least 83 Palestinian healthcare workers are currently being held by Israel, including 75 from Gaza.

[Yousef Munayyer @YousefMunayyer]

Israel is trying to get ahead of a policy discussion they don't ever want happening publicly, whether the US should be arming Israel. They know that would not go well for them, especially now. They hope instead to rework the scheme in a way that maintains the benefits and avoids the messy fight.